luni, 10 iulie 2017

Stiri

At first sight the picture appears to show a mother cradling her young
child as she flees an Islamic State-held area of Mosul. But a
closer look reveals she is holding a trigger, which she will pull
seconds later. Woman holding detonator in Mosul blows herself up along
with a small child moments after the picture was taken. Credit:
Al-Mawsleya TV An Iraqi TV station captured the moment before
a suspected female Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil) suicide
bomber blew herself - and the baby - up near Iraqi troops. She had
apparently tried to detonate an explosives vest hidden under her hijab
as she passed the soldiers, but it failed to go off until she had walked
some distance away, a cameraman for al-Mawsleya TV said. A picture
shows a general view of the damage in the old city of Mosul Credit: AFP
She was killed along with her child, while two soldiers and several
civilians were injured. The station had been filming the battle between
Iraqi troops and Isil fighters and did not realise what they had caught
on camera until they reviewed their footage later. Isil is cornered in
a tiny square of the historic Old City, which the army said could be
liberated by the end of the day. Credit: AFP "We are seeing now the
last metres and then final victory will be announced," a host of Iraqi
state TV said on Saturday, citing the channel's correspondents embedded
with security forces battling in Isil’s redoubt in the Old City, by the
Tigris river. "It's a matter of hours," she said. The jihadists have
used everything in their arsenal to fend off the troops in the final
throes of the nine month-long offensive. Isil’s use of female suicide
bombers in battle, while not new, is exceedingly rare and demonstrates
the group’s desperation. More than 20 female suicide bombers hiding
among civilians are believed to have detonated explosives in the last
two weeks. Credit: EPA One general claimed they were even using their
own children as human shields. “The women are fighting with their
children right beside them,” Lieutenant General Sami al-Aridi said.
“It’s making us hesitant to use air strikes, to advance. If it weren’t
for this we could be finished in just a few hours.” Preventing the
attacks has proved difficult. Iraq’s socially conservative culture means
soldiers do not ask women to lift up their clothes to check for
explosives as they do men. An Iraqi Counter-Terrorism Service (CTS)
member drinks as he sits amid the rubble in the old city of Mosul
Credit: AFP Isil's so-called "jihadist brides" typically stay at home
and look after the children, but experts say women are becoming more
active, wishing to also take part in jihad on a par with men. During a
recent visit to Mosul, civilians told the Telegraph that the women Isil
members were as brutal as the men. “I was more afraid of the women
fighters than the men, they were like wild animals,” said Umm Omar. She
said women in Isil served as hisba, or morality, officers and would
ensure females living in the so-called caliphate adhered to the
jihadists’ strict dress code. She claimed many were whipped for minor
infractions. Read More

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Syria was first formed with several hundred troops from the 11th Marine
Expeditionary Unit, who detached from the Makin Island Amphibious Ready
Group with M777 155mm howitzers to support the fight, already underway.
Unlike the artillery element that detached from the 26th Marine
Expeditionary Unit a year before to established a fixed fire base in
northern Iraq, this team remained mobile. In April, Commandant Gen.
Robert Neller revealed to Military.com that the detachment had moved as
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The heartbreaking aftermath of the Mosul victory

After
eight months of urban warfare, the Iraqi armed forces declared victory
over the Islamic State. But at what cost? The city of Mosul was left in
ruins, thousands of civilians have been killed, and almost a million
have been displaced, adding to the already massive refugee crisis in the
region. These realities and many more have been captured over the last
month by AP photographer Felipe Dana who has been documenting the
fighting on the ground.